K. G. Subramanyan (b. 1924)

Contemporary  Indian Art: Glenbarra Art Museum Collection, Himeji, 1993, p 48 illustrated

The title of the current work reveals the inspiration of the folk traditions of Indian art in particular the large cloth painings or pichvai that were popular in Rajasthan in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Subramanyan's works are ambiguous; they are neither figurative nor abstract, he is inspired by the craft traditions of India but his compositions are entirely modernist in their approach.   The artist himself states, 'I think that this balancing of the abstract with the objective is one of the most significant characteristics of the traditional art of my country...This is where I get into contact with it. I want my work to live in such a twilight zone of sensibility, although the ingredients I put into it are not what they used ...but are of this time.'  (K. G. Subramanyan, Introduction to  Gallery Navina, 1967).